Let’s talk about a pioneer in bonsai. A legend.
Vaughn Banting was born August 23, 1947 in Red Wing, Minnesota. We’re won’t be focusing on his formative years but more on his time in New Orleans and his development of bonsai techniques. I don’t have the exact date in which he moved to New Orleans (these details can be added at a later time) but we know he spent the vast the majority of his life in New Orleans. He lived 50 plus years in New Orleans and would go on to be a well known landscaper in the area. There are actually a good number of Banting’s Nurseries open in southeast Louisiana at the time of me writing this entry. Banting is held in high regard by the New Orleans bonsai scene due to the fact that he founded the Greater New Orleans Bonsai Society in 1972. Banting was responsible for not only building a bonsai interest from within Louisiana but also he invited amazing bonsai artists to present at the club such as John Naka and Ben Oki over the years.
Banting would go on to donate two very significant bald cypress bonsai to the National Arboretum in Washington DC and the Weyerhaeuser Pacific Rim collection (now The Pacific Bonsai Museum). He also donated a good number of other bonsai to these collections in the following years.
Pictured above: on the left, Vaughn Banting and on the right, Guy Guidry. Trees from left to right: Acer rubrum forest planting (Banting), bald cypress (Guidry), and water elm (Banting)
As seen in the photo, these are just a few of the trees that would go on to be on display in the public collections mentioned before. The curious tree on the far right is a water elm in a traditional broom style. It’s not a very large bonsai but it was part of the National Arboretum collection at one point and I am seeking information on the tree if it is still around. Fortunately, Randy Bennett provided early images of the tree for me to share here.
Water elm broom style with leaves.
Water elm broom style without leaves.
These are really exciting images to see! We will be going over more of Banting’s beautiful designs as we post more articles but, let’s start here with this tree. The time frame of when these images were captured were likely between 1989 – 1992.
I wanted to study this particular tree for a handful of reasons. One, this is a great example of the traditional broom style. The proportions are near perfect starting from the root base, going up the trunk, and out into the fine branches of the canopy. This is what deciduous bonsai is all about. We can see the well placed main branches and how they taper out gradually as they reach the extremities of the silhouette. Two, this is a great study for the how the species looks so natural in this shape. Water elm tend to grow as “bush trees” in some areas around Louisiana.
The surface roots aren’t the easiest to see from this photo but they appear to be nice and uniform around the trunk. There are not any obvious scars or trunk chops, so this tree was either collected with this trunk line or it was grown out for some time to heal and hide them. The pot is a great choice for this tree as well as it fits the scale of the tree quite nicely. Banting was known to import fine bonsai pottery from Japan for his favorite trees and you can see the quality in the lines and clean up of this container.
This photo has the title “water elm on way to Washigton”
I think this is a great place to start because elm species make excellent broom style bonsai. I have a good number of water elm at Underhill Bonsai that are ready for the intial styling and most of them tend to lend themselves to this style. I will be sharing an article of some water elm I am working into broom style in the next post.
-Evan Pardue